UConn Health orders reuse of some masks
belonging bag. Once the patient is transferred or discharged, the bag with the masks must be kept in the designated plastic container in your department until the final results are known.”
“If the patient’s test comes back positive for Influenza or COVID-19, the bag with the masks must be discarded in trash,” the memo said. “If the patient’s tests come back negative for Influenza or COVID-19, the masks in the bag can be reused on any subsequent patient requiring AIRBORNE precautions. The mask must only be reused by the staff member who wore the mask originally.”
Hospitals across the country are anticipating a shortage of critical personal protection equipment such as the N95 masks, surgical masks and gowns as the virus spreads.
The lack of PPEs has become a global problem as the virus spreads. On Friday World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “The collapse of the personal protective equipment market poses extreme difficulties for protecting healthcare workers.”
Ghebreyesus said WHO is reaching out to manufacturers in China who have agreed to supply WHO, and that the agency is finalizing arrangements and coordinating shipments to “refill the WHO’s warehouse and ship PPE to whomever needs it.”
As of Saturday evening, there were 40 people in Connecticut hospitals with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, but officials are anticipating far more will need hospitalization. In his daily briefing Friday, Lamont said it’s going to be a struggle keeping up with the supply of PPEs to “make sure we have a health care system that’s ready to respond” as more people get sick.
“We have been working in very close collaboration with our friends in the hospitals, and we have all emphasized, and I’ve emphasized this to Vice President Pence’s task force in Washington, when it comes to protective equipment, there is a nationwide shortage,” Lamont said. “We did get a small allocation from the feds, and we are getting that distributed now to our hospitals and nursing homes, but we have a long way to go there,” he said.
On Friday, the Connecticut National Guard distributed about 40,000 personal protective masks to ambulance companies and other first responders in all five emergency regions around the state. The equipment was from a stockpile kept by the state Department of Public Health.
DPH officials also are expecting at least another 250,000 N95 masks and other personal protective equipment to arrive soon from the federal Strategic National Stockpiles.